Guild memberships benefit Emporia State theater department

May 11, 2012

The Emporia Theatre Guild at Emporia State University is accepting 2012-13 memberships. Guild members receive a ticket to each of the four Summer Theatre shows, the Homecoming musical, three additional shows of the 2012-13 season of ESU Theatre and the spring 2013 dance show.

In addition, guild members are invited to opening-night receptions for Summer Theatre and the Homecoming musical.

The four 2012 Summer Theatre productions are:

“Dearly Beloved” by Jones, Hope & Wooten, June 13 to 16, a comedy. The three Futrelle sisters are throwing a wedding in their hometown of Fayro, Texas. But nothing is working out and now the bride and her groom are missing. As the sisters try to figure out a way to salvage the wedding, they reunite their old gospel-singing group “The Sermonettes.”

“The Fox on the Fairway” by Ken Ludwig, June 27 to 30, farce. This tribute to English farces of the ’30s and ’40s is set in the Quail Valley Country Club where three love affairs are played out against the world of amateur golf, bad sweaters and exploding vases.

“Leaving Iowa” by Tim Clue and Spike Manton, July 11 to 14, comedy. Don Browning is a middle-age writer who returns to Iowa to take his father’s ashes to his boyhood home. He brings his wife and the two kids along and makes a family vacation of it with amusing, surprising and familiar results.

“U:Bug:Me” by Jeremiah Clay Neal, July 25 to 28, family musical. Life isn’t easy when you are a bug and Pico the housefly knows this only too well. His best friend is mad at him, his girlfriend — a caterpillar — is going through changes and an enormous horsefly is terrorizing him. This is a clever new musical for the whole family that recently enjoyed its world premiere at Kansas City’s Coterie Theatre.

All Summer Theatre shows are performed in Karl C. Bruder Theatre in King Hall with curtain time at 7:30 p.m. except the final performance of “U:Bug:Me,” which is an afternoon matinee.

The four 2012-13 productions are:

“Guys and Dolls,” Homecoming musical, Oct. 11 to 14. Desperate to find money to pay for his floating crap game, Nathan Detroit bets Sky Masterson a thousand dollars that Sky will not be able to take a local Salvation Army doll, Sarah Brown, to Cuba. While Sky eventually is able to convince Sarah to join him, Nathan battles with his fiancé of fourteen years, Adelaide. Critics call Frank Loesser’s classic Broadway show the “perfect American musical.”

“Inspecting Carol” by Daniel Sullivan, Nov. 28 to Dec. 1. A struggling theatre company is mounting its annual production of “A Christmas Carol” when they learn that their NEA grant — and their future — is on the line. They mistake an aspiring actor/accountant for the inspector and let him take over the show with hilarious results.

“Dancing at Lughnasa” by Brian Friel, Feb. 27 to March 2, 2013. It is 1936 and harvest time in County Donegal. In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five Mundy sisters. The two male members of the household are brother Jack, a missionary priest, and the 7-year-old child of the youngest sister. Irish dramatist Brian Friel depicts two momentous days in the life of this family with humor, pathos and wonder.

“Brownstone” by Catherine Butterfield, April 10 to 13 and April 17 to 20, 2013. Three points of time converge in a New York brownstone, spanning eighty years and encompassing the lives of three pairs of people. There are newlyweds who long to move to Paris, aspiring actresses who struggle to get their big break, and a newly engaged couple that finds their relationship complicated by an unexpected pregnancy. This is an exciting and memorable new play by an important new playwright.

Theatre Guild memberships — eight shows and two dinners — cost $125, with a $30 tax-deductible gift to scholarships. Memberships must be purchased by May 23, for donors to be included in the Summer Theatre Playbill.

Reservations for the June 13 opening night reception may be taken through June 8.

For more information or to receive a membership form, contact Barb Ternes at (620) 341-5256.

Emporia State University is a dynamic and progressive student-centered learning community that fosters student success through engagement in academic excellence, community and global involvement, and the pursuit of personal and professional fulfillment.